Caught Stealing is in cinemas from 29 August. Add it to your watchlist
After his divisive 2022 film The Whale, Darren Aronofsky returns with the most potentially commercial film of his career. It’s certainly the most thrilling. As the title suggests, Caught Stealing is a crime yarn, although theft is the least of the misdemeanours on show here. Set in 1998, in New York’s Lower East Side, this is a story where bruises flourish and bodies pile up. Back in a similar geographical terrain to Aronofsky’s first two movies, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, it has all the hallmarks of a cult 90s indie.
Adapted by Charlie Huston from his own novel, the central figure is Hank Thompson (Austin Butler), a former baseball prodigy now working in a bar run by Griffin Dunne’s owner Paul. The reason he no longer plays won’t become clear immediately, but he regularly speaks on the phone to his baseball-loving mother back in Patterson, California (“Go Giants!” they repeatedly say, nodding to their shared passion for the San Francisco Giants). He’s now facing an existence without the sport that drove him for so long.
Dating paramedic Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz), “nice small town boy” Hank lives in a shabby apartment right next door to Russ (Matt Smith, hilarious), a British-born, punk-loving drug dealer, complete with dyed yellow mohawk. The aggressive Russ asks Hank to look after his cat, as he needs to return to London as his father has taken ill. This micro-kindness soon backfires, when two Russian thugs arrive at Russ’s door and take it upon themselves to kick Hank up and down the hallway, rupturing his kidney.
View oEmbed on the source websiteIt’s the first of many violent encounters Hank endures over the coming days, as Russ’s nefarious activities soon land on Hank’s doorstep. With a hard-bitten cop named Ramon (Regina King) on the case, and the Russians’ Spanish-speaking associate Colorado (Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny) also involved, there are even two Orthodox Jews (Liev Schreiber, Vincent D’Onofrio) looking for Russ. These “scary monsters” as Ramon dubs them will stop at nothing to get back what they want from Russ.
What follows is one of those non-stop narratives, where everything Hank touches turns to the very opposite of gold, as he finds himself implicated in a situation where he increasingly looks like the fall guy. Aronofsky doesn’t shy away from the violence, although it never feels gratuitous – just wincingly painful (notably Hank getting two staples sealing up his kidney operation yanked out). While he doesn’t help himself, self-medicating with booze when he was instructed not to drink after losing his organ, you can’t help but feel for him.
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The Thursday Murder Club review: A safe and cosy whodunnit with touches of pathosThe Life of Chuck review: Tom Hiddleston charms in entertaining, imaginative and non-horror Stephen King adaptationFreakier Friday review: Get set to party like it's 2003 all over againWeapons review: One of the best horror films of recent yearsWith a raucous score from British post-punk band Idles lending the film a rambunctious energy, there’s a real graffiti-strewn, grimy quality to Caught Stealing. Aronofsky and his team capture the pre-Millennium shabbiness of the area, as well as featuring a few familiar cultural landmarks, including the famed Kim’s Video, the music and video store that inspired (and employed) a generation of cineastes, and even spawned a 2023 documentary.
Brilliantly cast – right down to the appearance of Carol Kane as a Jewish matriarch who advises Hank, “If you can’t bite, don’t show your teeth” – it’s another feather in Butler’s cap. Since his Oscar-nominated turn in Elvis, he’s found some great character parts, like his maniac warrior in Dune: Part Two. But this is an Everyman lead that he grasps by the lapels and runs with. Seasoned with humour (note the Margaret Thatcher bobblehead on Russ’s car), this propulsive crime-sometimes-pays story will keep you hooked to the very end. Oh, and cat lovers will almost certainly leave purring with delight.
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